Scorched app

[birdietoldme]

Out of Character Information

player name: Orlando
player journal: paperback
playing here: none
where did you find us? ...lj?
are you 16 years of age or older?: Yes.

In Character Information

character name: Rebakah "Beka" Cooper
Fandom: The Provost's Dog subset of Tamora Pierce's Tortall books
Timeline: Post-Bloodhound (book 2) but pre-Mastiff (book 3). The year 248 H.E., before she becomes engaged to Holborn Shaftstall.
character's age: 18

powers, skills, pets and equipment:
Powers:
Beka has what is known in canon as the "air gift." It's a small amount of magic (she's not considered a mage) which allows her to talk to the spirits of the dead which ride on pigeons until they move on and with dust spinners, which are basically small sentient whirlwinds that collect the sounds from the air around them (such as speech).

I'm not certain as to how these would function in Anatole. I was thinking that conversations with particularly strong emotion behind them could be (unreliably, of course) carried to her on the breeze within a one or two mile radius. She would also be attractive to certain forms of undead- apparitions would seek her out to try to speak to her and poltergeists would find her a very attractive target.

Skills:
Beka is well-versed in combat- on the training ground and in real-life situations such as bar brawls and riots. She has varying degrees of skill in use of her baton, sap, many hidden knives, hand-to-hand combat, and really anything that can be thrown, with at least basic competence in all of them (she'll go for the official baton by default, but she really seems to like the knives most). She's not going to beat a master of any of these skills, because she hasn't devoted enough time to any of them individually, but she trains herself more rigorously than most Dogs, and will hold her own in most situations in which she is not up against a professional or outnumbered. Her combat skills are mostly designed to incapacitate- getting someone out of the way or on the ground without killing them. While she is certainly capable of killing and will not hesitate to do so in the right circumstances, she is trained not to unless it's necessary in order to save lives (including her own). She also has a number of less legal skills picked up from less law-abiding friends- notably lockpicking. As the handler of a scent hound, she has some skill in tracking in both city and rural environments. She can spot signs of passage on roads and land and if there hasn't been too much traffic she might be able to distinguish between groups and determine direction. She also has excellent stamina as a runner.

Pets:
While her talking incarnated constellation of a cat, Pounce, is an appable character and thus not coming, Beka will have her scent hound Achoo with her. Achoo is a mutt, a fairly large dog with a curly white coat, extremely talented as a scent hound and well-trained.

Equipment:
Beka will be arriving in uniform. Which also means a certain amount of armor and weaponry. She won't have her full kit, but she will have her gorget, helmet, leg guards, arm guards (which have knives in them), more hidden knives, purse, baton, sap, cords for hobbling criminals, and the spiked strap she braids into her hair.

canon history: Tortall wikia

personality:
Most people encounter Beka in one of two ways- Beka the woman, or Beka the Dog.

Beka the woman is quiet. While she is polite to people she sees regularly, such as shopkeepers, and does her best to deal fairly with people, she is shy around strangers. She has difficulty making eye contact and talking to people she doesn't know. This doesn't mean she is unsocial- she enjoys attending festivals and dancing (one notably does not have to talk much during these), and likes to be part of groups of friends. She goes out often enough, and the relationships she forms tend to last- she remained friends with Tansy even after Beka's family was brought out of the lower city and Tansy remained, and even after Beka and Dale Rowan ended their brief romance the two saw each other in friendly situations when Beka came to Port Caynn. But it does mean she hates being the center of attention, unless she is very comfortable with the person giving the attention, and feels much more at ease watching and not at ease being called upon to perform. She has a tendency to be a little self-conscious- whether it's about her unusual eye color or her speech. But once she's become used to a group, she can take on a bit of a mothering role- trying to see that everyone is comfortable and reminding people that it's bad to keep rubbing their eyes.

Beka the Dog is another matter. She's relentlessly determined- she earned the nickname "Terrier" early in her career, when she wasn't even out of training, by chasing a woman high on medieval fantasy amphetamines (really) through most of the lower city (literally through in parts- running on top of tavern tables was involved). Beka believes completely in the importance of using the law to protect people- all people, not just the rich. She's very much aware of how hard life is for many people, and she genuinely wants to protect people and improve their lives if she can. This belief, and her pride in the institution she represents, overrides many of her self-effacing tendencies. When she's on the job she's considerably more forthcoming- whether explaining procedures to a colleague or stopping by the house and chatting with someone who could provide important information. She won't stand for insults to the institution she represents or the leader of it, Lord Gershom, and will at the very least speak sharply to anyone who presents such insults. She does not hesitate to act in the prevention of crime or the defense of her coworkers.

But this isn't to say she completely compartmentalizes herself; both identities do bleed over into the other. Her shyness makes her miserable at presenting evidence in court, even after doing it for years, and it can leave her intimidated into silence in the presence of those she admires while on the job. Her confidence in her ability to handle herself translates to civilian situations such as men forcing their attentions on her- she can make sure their hands aren't near her. She also tends to listen and watch things carefully even when she's not on the job. Her tendency to mother a bit can come out in things like telling her partners to take better care of themselves, and her professional curiosity still turns up in out-of-uniform conversation with civilians.

Beka is terrilby practical. She focuses on the tasks in front of her, and focuses on the logical thing to do in a given situation- whether that's carefully budgeting her expenses or saving people from a fire. When she's not in uniform, she wears a tunic and trousers unless she's specifically in a social situation which demands a dress. Her practicality on the job even extends into a kind of creativity- this is a woman who has not only thought of hiding a strangling cord in her vagina, she's tried it (it got too uncomfortable during running, but hey it was worth a shot). Because you never know when you are going to need another hidden weapon. With her cool head and a certain amount of seeming detachment, Beka can seem humorless. But despite her being in the role of straight man more often than not, she does have a dry sense of humor of her own which comes out among friends, and she does appreciate absurdity when it's not accompanied by stupidity- even if her way of laughing at it is mostly on the inside. While most of her things are chosen for usefulness, she does have a bit of a weakness for feminine accents. Her long hair is her "one vanity" (though she makes sure it can't be used against her in a fight by braiding a spiked strap into it), and she has a fondness for certain jewels, notably fire opals.

Beka is something of a creature of habit. Things like her conviction that poor people be treated as any others whom Dogs encounter might lead someone to think that she'd challenge aspects of the social order, such as the fact that the rich can get off of, say, fraud charges with a bribe while the poor would be sent to hard labor. But things like that don't seem to occur to her- the order is how it is, you help people as you can within it, but you can't change it. She usually has set regimens for the day. Though she spent years being educated in the Provost's house, she has a tendency to slip back into lower-city cant in stressful situations or sometimes simply when in the presence of enough people speaking it. When she's not careful, this tendency towards habit can be dangerous- exiting her lodgings the same way regularly because she had come to rely on those around her to provide protection once nearly got her killed.

Beka is also very much a product of her place and time- a time with a government and civil society which is still very much in development. She's friends with a number of members of the Court of the Rogue in Corus, including the Rogue himself. As these people are criminals, you would think she'd refuse to associate with them. But the Rogue performs functions for the people of the lower city that the government doesn't, and so Beka has no problem with the institution. As long as they keep their professional lives from crossing, cops and criminals can find each other very useful friends. Beka is used to bribery as part of the law-enforcement process, as well as methods of interrogation up to and including torture (though she herself does not condone or practice those methods). She's also, funnily enough, used to more gender equality than those nobles from 200 years in her future.

why do you feel this character would be appropriate to the setting?
Beka is more than familiar with danger- she arguably seeks it out (in order to keep it from others, but still). While Anatole will present different challenges than she's used to, she's a practical and adaptable type and will do her best to adjust and help people for as long as she's stuck there.

Writing Samples

Network Post Sample:

[She'd studied the "Forge" and watched what people did on it for several days, but the thought of using it herself made her knees weak and her throat dry up. Her curst shyness. It was easier even to talk to people on the street than it was to use this thing.

But if she thought of it as a report, maybe she could do it. She wrote reports to strangers, after all. She was reporting in. That was it.]

[text]

Guardswoman Rebakah Cooper, of the Lower City District in Corus, the Kingdom of Tortall, requesting information regarding the city of Anatole and the town of Wynn.


Your aid is appreciated.

Third Person Sample:
There were a number of things about Anatole which Beka still hadn't been able to adjust to, from the monsters that sometimes appeared (the ghosts here were right strange, peculiar as that thought may be) to the clothes (what was the point of corsets?). But there were also things she was coming to love, and one of these was the street lamps.

She'd asked about them and been told it was "gas lighting," though those she asked couldn't answer as to what gas it was or how it was provided (beyond "pipes"). The light was beautiful- a steady yellow glow stronger than a candle, more stable than a torch, not smoky like oil. And the lamps were everywhere in the city. They didn't just brighten the grounds of the rich homes in the most well-to-do areas, the way mage-produced light was often used back in Tortall. With light like this, even the streets outside the poorest buildings could be seen at night. With light like this, a Dog could chase a Rat down a street at midnight and not risk tripping or getting lost- or at least only run as much risk as they did in the best chases. Though she wasn't a Dog here, she reminded herself. She was police.

One of the other Scorched had said that gas lamps were nothing- some kind of light called "electric" was even brighter and steadier. Beka wasn't sure she could believe that without seeing it.

She wore a hint of a smile as she stopped for a moment beneath the next lamp on the street, glancing down at how short her shadow had become rather than looking up to the flame. It was one thing to appreciate the light, it was another to ruin your night vision entirely by staring at it.

She had to find out what gas this was. There were so many things that could be done were it found and found usable in Tortall.

Anything else?
Beka's books come with their own sarden glossaries, so if she sounds a bit of a looby to those not from her place and time, she's honestly not cracked.